In the first 2 pics the riders are attacking and that is the position you want to attack, in the the other pic they are just riding along. That's the position you want to be in when attacking: low down on the drops. Since position is rather personal and if you are more of an upright rider then you better have the extra watts to compensate for that position. Forget all the aero stuff you have on, position is king when you want to go faster than yourself in an un-aero (if there is such a word) position.

_________________I never took drugs to improve my performance at any time. I will be willing to stick my finger into a polygraph test if anyone with big media pull wants to take issue. If you buy a signed poster now it will not be tarnished later. --Graeme Obree

Agreed. But my point is Kelly isn't that much different from the others except his arms are a bit more vertical. It was Guimard and the '80's that produced really extreme stretch, and Kelly sort of avoided that, so LeMond in his book criticizes Kelly's position, but I don't see it. The human body hasn't changed and guys like Coppi, Anquetil, and Merckx had no problem getting aero.

Starting perhaps with Bartoli there was a counter trend to not stretch out but stretch down: maximum bar drop. That's what Andy Schleck does and it's perverse. He can't even reach his drops in the saddle. The guys with the best position, from Coppi to Contador, look balanced: they can get low when they need to be, but they aren't forced there when they don't.

On Cavendish: he wins because he's explosive, has amazing ability to put himself where he needs to be, and because in the sprint he's consistently the most aerodynamic sprinter there: indeed arguably the most aerodynamic in history at that level. It's not just power which wins sprints, and most sprinters focus primarily on power.

Agreed. But my point is Kelly isn't that much different from the others except his arms are a bit more vertical. It was Guimard and the '80's that produced really extreme stretch, and Kelly sort of avoided that, so LeMond in his book criticizes Kelly's position, but I don't see it. The human body hasn't changed and guys like Coppi, Anquetil, and Merckx had no problem getting aero.

Starting perhaps with Bartoli there was a counter trend to not stretch out but stretch down: maximum bar drop. That's what Andy Schleck does and it's perverse. He can't even reach his drops in the saddle. The guys with the best position, from Coppi to Contador, look balanced: they can get low when they need to be, but they aren't forced there when they don't.

On Cavendish: he wins because he's explosive, has amazing ability to put himself where he needs to be, and because in the sprint he's consistently the most aerodynamic sprinter there: indeed arguably the most aerodynamic in history at that level. It's not just power which wins sprints, and most sprinters focus primarily on power.

Kelly had his saddle lower than standard compared to traditional fit now. I should have made that more clear. From other pics he seemed more bunched than those posted.

Last edited by edesigner on Sun Dec 09, 2012 7:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

From what I remember reading, Pruitt "fitted" all of them, but most of them ended up just changing their shit back to what it was after. In the article he claimed to have brought Frank Schleck's bars up and in something like 2cm, but Schleck still ran his -17 140mm stem after.

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